The MSM is putty in Cynthia McKinney’s hands. While an AOL poll (and such polls usually lean left) shows that by a margin of 12 to 1 readers’ sympathies lean toward the Capitol Police instead of her, AOL headlines its piece on the topic Race Swirls Around McKinney Confrontation. (Article also available here.) Race only swirls around this because in the words of Tom DeLay, “Everything is racism” to Ms. McKinney.
As many others have said, this woman plays the race card every chance she gets.
Look, we all have occasions when we lose our temper and do things which get us into trouble — or cause our friends, neighbors of co-workers to wonder about our behavior. On horrible days after being stuck in LA traffic, we might yell “bitch” at a woman who parks her car right in front of the entrance to our parking garage, forcing us to wait in the street (until she moves her illegally parked vehicle) and delaying our return to our apartment where we can collapse on the sofa and take two Excedrin. Instead of yelling insults in such circumstances, others might be more patient, still others might stew in self-pity while a few of us might get out of the car and use physical force against those who offend us.
In some cases, such force may be warranted. In most it is not. In Ms. McKinney’s case, it clearly wasn’t. As House Speaker Dennis Hastert put it, “This is not about personality . . . . It’s not about racial profiling. It’s about making this place safer.”
I’ll cut Ms McKinney some slack. As a busy Member of Congress who has to work long hours and travel back and forth between her district and Washington, she didn’t want to hassle with the added burden of a security check from which her elected office exempts her. In a moment of pique, she felt put upon, lost her cool and slapped someone (whom she felt) was making her day more difficult. But, when she had time to cool down, she should have realized that it was just a policeman doing his job. At that point, the right thing to do would be to apologize, say she made a mistake and acted inappropriately and that she truly regrets her actions. She should make clear that she was in error but she forgot to put on her pin — or display prominently other documents — identifying her as a Member of Congress.
Aware, however that the MSM (given their “liberal” education) are eager for stories which show racial, gender or class divisions in our society, Ms. McKinney assumes she can get away by dressing her actions up as some racial confrontation. That is, the media encourages her to play the race card. AP (and other MSM outlets) may want to pretend this is about race, but, as that AOL poll shows, most Americans know better. Cynthia McKinney is just another boorish member of Congress.
Just as Zsa Zsa Gabor was another boorish celebrity who was rightfully prosecuted for slapping a Beverly Hills cop. Her Hungarian ancestry had nothing to do with her arrest.
It’s too bad the MSM plays into her hands by claiming that race “swirls” around the confrontation. Just because they (and she) say it does doesn’t make it so. She behaved badly and should be held to account for her actions. And the MSM should treat her just as that would any other boorish elected official.
C’mon.
The castrated liberal media isn’t going to write anything that opposes a black, liberal woman.
Not being black, I have no idea what it’s like to be black.
The converse of that, of course, is that if a person is not white they have no idea what it’s like to be white.
That’s what gets me about stuff like this is that charges of racism are based on unequal treatment and to do that assumptions have to be made about what kind of treatment the other sort of person is subject to.
I’ve twice been left un-served at Denny’s. I don’t know why not, maybe the waitress and busboy were having a quicky in the back room and didn’t see me come in. I do know it wasn’t because of racism. There’s lots of other reasons that someone might behave rudely.
And it’s not that the explaination is *never* racism, it’s that it isn’t *always* racism.
People look at this, and even if they knew nothing about Cynthia at all, it seems reasonable to stop someone that went around security. Even if the cop was fresh from some scandinavian enclave in the mid-west where all his face recognition brain-ware was dedicated to telling one little blond clone from another, and black people really *did* look all alike to him, his actions do not seem unreasonable to a reasonable person. She was unrecognized, she went around security, she didn’t stop.
(Scandinavian girls really *do* all look alike, and I’d not hesitate to dare Miss Cynthia to reliably reconize Japanese individuals in Japan. In a situation with racial diversity the “all look alike” issue goes away quickly. This isn’t racism, it’s just how our brains and facial recognition wet-ware works. )
Rep. McKinney is fortunate that the Capitol Police officer didn’t use lethal force in subduing someone who penetrated his security check-point while refusing to show authorizing-identification. She might not have been a member of Congress; she might have been a suicide-bomber…or just an armed, ill-intentioned constitutent. Two members of the Capitol Police were gunned-down in the Capitol Building just a few years ago by such an idividual.
Our members of Congress need to be reminded that they are still “citizens”, not members of a separate Estate.
Dan, don’t cut this “honorable” member of congress any slack. Much of her career has been based on “victimhood” because she’s black. And she’s had previous run-ins with Capitol Police.
To cite one, according to one Fox News report, earlier this year she had a confrontation with Capitol Police when she tried to take a friend and the friend’s child into a closed session of a congressional committee.
In the most recent incident, if she weren’t so self-impressed with being a member of congress, it would have taken only a few moments to identify herself, apologize for not having her ID badge on and show some type of ID. But, of course, that would not have given her an opportunity to scream “racism”.
BTW, I found it interesting that John Aravosis at Americablog, which is as far to the left as you are to the right, immediately criticized Ms. McKinney. He said evidence to the contrary would cause him to apologize, but said it sure looked like she was in the wrong.
#0 – Butch post! I like it 🙂
Everything you have had to write about Cynthia McKinney is spot on. There is no question in my mind that she hasd embarassed herself, but in addition she has embarassed the following: the US Congress, the Democratic party, the Black populace, Black women, and maybe she has even embarassed women as a whole.
And I understand that Cynthia is not White: I am not White either and I don’t make excuses for people of my ancestry which are engaged in poor behaviour…which in that case includes gang violence and illegal immigration.
As an Hispanic American (emphasis on American) I have NO reason whatsoever to condone their bad behaviour and definitely I refuse to condone Cynthia’s bad behaviour.
And that is without taking her anti-American, anti-Semitic history into account…her anti-Semitic attitudes which she inherited from her father, a Georgia state legislator who attacked Jews in one of his speeches.
My hope is that Cynthia is removed from Congress in handcuffs and a bright orange jumpsuit and sent off to jail for what she did. The democrats are guaranteed to lose at least that seat…and many many more as well.
This is going to compound matters for the DNC which is already battling with their own demons of corruption and irrational partisan hatred.
Race is the obsession of the boomer generation. As long as the boomers control the media, the rest of us are stuck with having the news put through the prism of their liberal white guilt.
I actually feel bad for good cops who are doing their jobs, because they get “racist” tossed at them quite often, but this guy didn’t seem to act unreasonable, and he gets the charge tossed all over the National media.
The reality is while there is racism, everything that happens to black people isn’t because of racism. Sometimes they bring it on themselves, because of their own idiotic behavior (or in this case princess syndrome).
It seems liberals never read The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
No wonder Michael Steele of Maryland is making inroads in his campaign. And the DNC plantation is shaking in its boots.
This “victim mentality” has to cease and desist. Not only for minorities but for gays as well. You have nothing to lose except your pity, and much to gain including your self-esteem.
Regards,
Peter H.
Speaking of Steele, here is the latest underhanded Demcrat ploy to keep him out of office.
#11 – I saw that, RWP. Utterly disgusting. If that’s not a tactic by the DNC to keep blacks “on the plantation,” I don’t know what is.
Imagine if someone like DeLay tried doing that to a demoncRAT, regardless of their race. He’d have been pilloried and name-called to no end!
Regards,
Peter H.